I had a good day yesterday. I had oatmeal for breakfast, had some grocery shopping to do later. I had a very late lunch of a McDonalds grilled chicken Ranch snack wrap -270 calories, but managed to have enough self discipline to NOT grab a bag of chips and a soda to hold me over before then since I was on the go. I picked up some Lean Cuisines, apples and bananas. For dinner I had a Lean Cuisine and an apple. I drank all of my water. My calories for an entire day totaled about 970. This is way below what I should be eating I know. But, I was not hungry when I went to bed. I woke up today and had seemingly more energy.

After consuming all but 16 calories worth of my goal calories today (I didn't plan my meals and snacks but have been logging them now using the WebMD Food & Fitness Logs). I was feeling like I could eat everything in sight. My husband has been trying keep me accountable as well. I also had not drank all of the water I needed to drink today.After drinking nearly all of the remaining water I needed, I still felt like I wanted something to eat. Hello A1 sauce One Tbsp packs only 15 calories and satisfied my taste buds for now. Hopefully I can stave off the munchies for the rest of the nightView Thread

SW-265 GW-185The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. - Maureen Dowd

I believe part of it is their food choices. Their way of thinking is We're old. We're going to enjoy what we want to. I've been encouraging healthier eating since I've been here. Although I have, the unhealthy and junky foods still make their way onto the grocery lists. Since my aunt had her stroke, she is no longer able to do the cooking. My uncle will cook sometimes. I think he just prefers not to cook anything that requires a lot of effort. Part of his thing, I think, is that he's not aware of which foods are really good for him and which ones are really bad for him. He's diabetic now. Growing up I've always noticed they keep things handy such as Banana Twins, Donut Sticks, Marshmallow Cakes, and some other Little Debbie treats. They still do. Since he's been out of the hospital from his injury, he's been drinking mostly water, eating whole wheat bread, brown rice. He's still got to have his coffee and the occasional 1/4 of a 12 oz Coca Cola. He's lost a bit of weight. While he seems to be willing to cooperate with some of my encouragement, mainly the whole wheat and whole grains, he doesn't seem interested in actually staying on a healthy eating regimen. He's commented that as soon as he's done healing, that his sugar should go back to being checked only at doctor's visits and he can go back to having his sodas and snack cakes. This has helped to discourage me from eating the unhealthy stuff. But, I'm still starting out and having to really work on my self-discipline. I believe that once I'm done helping out here and go home permanently again, that I'll be better able to restrict my own eating habits. I don't ordinarily keep a lot of sweets at my house. The main thing I'll have trouble with at home is probably going to be sweet tea. Other than sweet beverages my biggest and most enormous weakness is chocolate. I'm a chocoholic. And I LOVE fried chicken. Growing up, my mother was either unknowledgable of eating nutritiously or just ignorant of it. There were not many meals in which she didn't fry the meat we were about to eat. She's always been big and for the most part so have I. Now she's diabetic and had a stroke in 2009. My aunt, I'm helping care for, when I was a kid she would always encourage me to clean my plate. This mentality was nearly drilled into me as I was always so eager to please her. Now I have a difficult time deciding to stop when I feel like I'm almost full. I read somewhere it takes the brain 20 minutes to register that you've had enough to eat. Once I can bring myself to consciously stop eating when I'm no longer hungry, I think I'll be able to make more progress.

My aunt wanted some peanut butter cookies. After they were made, she asked, "Don't you want one." When I said, "No, Thank you." She said, "Why not?" in such a tone as to indicate that she was highly offended by my not eating one. I told her, "I'm trying to lose weight. I can't eat any and everything I want. I don't want to look like this a year from now." She let it go. They keep all sorts of sweet treats here on hand. The first thing I did when I first started staying here to help out about five weeks ago was relocated all of the junky foods i.e. chips, candy bars, Donut Sticks and other sweets to the pantry from the table in the breakfast nook which is in full view of the living room. (out of sight, out of mind)View Thread

SW-265 GW-185The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. - Maureen Dowd